Who's soul is to hunt?
by Johnathan soulless
Summary: Skyrim is a land awash with disease and monsters. Vampires and werewolves are natural enemies, one being the only thing that can destroy the other. A vampire hunter with a dark secret, a preacher with a filthy affliction in the sights of ravenous monster hunters, and a dark shadow watching her, preparing her terrible destiny.


The vampire's deep yellow eyes glittered malevolent in the darkness as he contemplated the unwary explorer walking beneath him, with a slow and confident step. Nestled in a ridge above the passage in which the traveller was passing through, it had a clear view of his hooded form. The beast dug its clawed fingers further into the cave wall as it examined his prey. That armour...ye-s, he was working for that adorable little upstart group after all, was a...delicious coincidence. The vampire chuckled at its accidental pun, given that it was going to rip this poor creature to ribbons, in pursuit of the blood within. What a shame that a single member of the Dawnguard happened into Dimhollow crypt alone, such a pity...for him.

Not a single gap of the morsel's flesh was showing, but that was what the fangs were for, and the vampire convinced himself that its hungry white lips would taste dinner within seconds of contact. It decided it would aim for the shoulder, in the interest of sport. The high cheek boned smile in the dark bolstered its excitement as the vampire reared to pouch. A few more seconds... NOW!

The monster released the wall and fell elegantly, flying towards the unsuspecting fool. The pale claws and pearly fangs bore, as it hurtled towards the shadowy stranger. The darkness that had functioned as the vampires shroud began to dissipate as the man's torchlight drew closer. The fall was silent, regardless of its speed, and this vampire's latest victim was unaware of his company, right up to the last second. The sallow lips curled into a sickly triumphant smile, as its maw sank into the meals neck.

...

'This is ridiculous, what was I thinking-listening to that freak?'

Shiro raged in his mind as he pushed the Vampire corpse, its limp body slumping to the hard granite floor. The fangs were black and smouldering, as if burned by some acidic toxic venom. The vampire's claws were in a similar state; harsh burns bubbled and shone where once the blood of Shiro had dripped. But the real damage had been done by the three mouthfuls of blood that it had managed to swallow. As it was, the cursed thing sprawled on the floor, its organs reduced to boiling paste. Shiro looked at its pitiable state for only a moment before turning away, disgustedly continuing his trek to the heart of Dimhollow.

This was not the first parasite to ambush him in this grotty little place, but that last one actually caught him by surprise, though thinking about it, by the looks of things it was he who had surprised it. The fool of a vampire had not recognised him for what he was, given his hood concealing his face. Behind the brown hood, lurked a pair of dark shaded, restless eyes. These eyes were the most prominent sign of his true identity, his true murderous visage. Shiro staggered slightly, the loss of blood momentarily disorientating him. His blood was soon replaced however, and the bite and scratch marks healed.

This business was a bore to someone like him, who was used to hunting bears and slaying giant man-eating trolls, but at the very least he could do this job easily, and the money he'd make could be put towards maybe building himself a proper home in Skyrim. He had spent too long living in ragged tents and sleeping rough in the snow. He wasn't far from his goal of 5000 septims and this might just clinch it. The job was simple, investigate the cave and help out any survivors. Shiro gave a rare smile, this wouldn't take long.

Strolling forward through the grotto, Shiro noticed the corpses littered around the floor and lining the walls. Whatever battle had taken place here, it looks like the vampires won. Those creepy little dogs that they fought with were also lying around, some of the blood of the dead bodies leaking out of their mouths, dripping off of their teeth. The sight of such inferiority just pissed Shiro off even more. Pinching a handsome golden necklace from one of the old vigils of Stendarr, he continued.

"Hmph…not like you need it anymore."

He had heard about that massacre at the Stendarr outpost from that Orc, Durak. Apparently a group of vampires had jumped them in the middle of the night, and in the confusion they had all perished in the slaughter. Of course, this was not an uncommon occurrence these days. Vampire attacks were becoming more and more expected, especially in the big cities. They were normally dog piled in an instant by guards during the day, but the attacks that look place at night were often a lot more …eventful. Slaughters of a particularly gruesome nature, the fiends often managed to take at least one guard with them along with countless innocents.

Shiro couldn't really see the point of these suicide missions; the only explanation was that these creatures seemed to be slaves to their hunger. This was what Shiro really hated this about vampires, they were in vice to their instincts to kill and feed. Surely self-control was what made you human. He had managed to keep his head whilst amongst humans, even the more tasty looking ones. Probably best to not think about that right now. Thinking of such temptations made his teeth itch.

As Shiro walked through a handsome stone archway into another crypt, he spotted before him an odd sight, so strange that he hung back and kept quiet to see how it would play out. A colossal draugr was grasping another of those blood suckers by the throat. The deep red, zombie like husk was so tall that the girl's small frame had left the ground. This had not stopped her from struggling and waving an elven knife at the monster. While she did this, another of those death hounds was mauling the accursed things leg, and the draugr was attempting to shake it off while still choking the vampire.

The sight was so ridiculous, it was almost comical to Shiro who had never seen a vampire so angry and pathetic looking. It reminded him of a skeever caught in a bear trap. The way she flailed and stabbed at the thick arm of the draugr was not affecting it in the slightest since they were unable to feel fear or pain. Not that it really had anything to fear from a vampire; after all it was already undead, not much of a change in life style. Shiro smirked, how strange that they weren't allied; after all, they both slept in coffins.

Regardless, the draugr looked like it was about finished chocking the un-life out of the vampire and dropped her on the ground, perhaps to smack the mutt off of it. Shiro never found out, because the vampire jumped on top of the zombie and ripped out its throat with her teeth. Cold blood spurted out of the draugr's neck; it was dark green and smelled unacceptable. The stench almost caused Shiro to yell as he covered his nose, grimacing. His heightened sense of smell was very heavily offended by bad odours.

Unfortunately, the dog must have sensed his presence and stalked over towards him. The vampire was still massaging her neck, so she didn't notice her pet's investigation. Shiro pressed himself against the wall, hiding from view behind a sarcophagus. He straightened up, intending to ambush the mutt and its master. The dog drew nearer, and Shiro caught its own scent on the air. It smelled like a frozen corpse, only slightly more pleasant that the draugr. Slowly, Shiro gripped the scabbard of the blade on his back and prepared to draw. It was only held to him by two small sheathes attached to a piece of thick leather stretching the length of Shiro's form, strapping to his back a long, black blade.

…

The unsuspecting hell spawn never felt the rush of motion as the blade parted the shallow air. It glided through the dusty gloom like a phantom. Such beautiful lightless obsidian, almost other worldly in how it left a millimetre long red trail behind it as it danced through the air.

The vampire spun on the spot and faced the direction that the whimper had come from. There stood Shiro, facing the monster confidently, sliding his sword back into its snug sheathe. The dog stood rooted to the spot just behind his left leg, seemingly paralysed. But the true nature of the dog came to pass rather abruptly. The thick stone collar around its black neck split in two and crumpled to the floor. This motion destroyed what structural integrity the mongrel beast had left. Its form slid silently to the ground, one segment at a time.

There was a piercing moment of silence as hunter and prey met eyes, the cold black against the fiery orange, now widening with understanding. Her gaze seemed to flit over the uniform the stranger wore, and a look of mounting realisation crept across the gaunt feminine features. Its grip on the green stained knife in its hand tightened slightly, almost as if the creature was considering taking Shiro head on, but one more look at that long eastern looking blade, and then at those merciless eyes, and then to the skewered death hound, and she seemed to think better of it. Lowering the knife back into its belt sheathe, the night spawn raised its hand and cast an invisibility spell. With a tiny noise like a fire being lit, the vampire vanished from Shiro's gaze.

He could hear the creatures excited rasping breaths as it circled around him. He heard the clink of a weapon being drawn, but as Shiro strained his ears he thought it sounded heavier than the knife the creature had been using, it scraped as it was drawn like something elongated, maybe a war axe.

"You never should have come here, Vampire hunter" it whispered in the dark space, allowing her soft voice to hiss in Shiro's ears in what she might have intended to be a seductive gesture, in truth however, it just made Shiro's ear itch . She seemed to be highly amused by the fact that he couldn't see her. Shiro felt the rush of wind as a blade cut through the musty air inches from his face, but did not flinch at all which seemed to discompose the vampire. He had known it was coming because he could still see the cow, not with his eyes but with his nose and ears. The unnaturally sharp senses allowed Shiro to hear the creak of bone against muscle as the vampire drew breath and the poisonous smell of draugr blood hung around her like a scarf. He could see her perhaps clearer than he could when she was visible.

Losing her nerve, the vampire swung the weapon as hard as she could directly at Shiro's face, invisible as she was, she did not expect him to catch the ghostly blade, nor for a vice like grip to wrench the handle out of her snowy hands. But catch it he did and the stranger skilfully twisted the blade in his hand and forced the blooded vampire to drop her weapon. As it separated from the invisibility spell, the weapon became visible. Shiro had been right; it had been a war axe, the iron forged weapon clanked to the floor with a metallic noise that filled the whole catacomb.

Without a pause to breathe, Shiro grabbed the vampire by the neck and lifted her up by it. This was no draugr and she knew it and her attempt to reach the knife did not seem viable, as the crushing force of a gloved hand closed her wind pipe, cutting off the flow of blood to her brain. She could not breathe, think or move, All she could do was go limp. As he saw that the vampire was now in no way resisting, he walked casually over to a wall bracket, and placed the torch in it for more convenient storage. He had run out of patience for sword play, this was simple unarmed retribution.

He lifted the vampires limp body, whose face had now become a deep shade of blue. Shiro gripped her left leg with his now free hand, and twisted her into a horizontal position. He took one final moment to look up at the desperate expression of the bloodsucker before bringing the base of her spine into sharp bone crushing contact with his knee. Her body went limp of its own accord, and the now lifeless vampire gazed up at the dirt ceiling with blank vacant eyes. Shiro rather unceremoniously allowed the body to flop off him and left it without looking back, he did not like to get attached to these creatures, they might look somewhat human, and may fear death like humans, but there was no humanity in those dark eyes.

He didn't know why, but Shiro rather disliked being underground. Maybe it was the air, the constant nagging feeling that there was a limited amount of if in such a dark place. Or maybe it as just the company he had to keep in the deep places of the world. He reflected on this as he pulled his blade from the sabre tooth sized feelers of a queen frostbite spider. It had not put up a great amount of resistance, it was heavily lacerated when he had arrived, and the webbed corpse in the corner was probably the vampire that had caused. Why did all the nasty things live underground? It was like filth was drawn to itself.

Disregarding the thought, Shiro forced his hand between a pair of Nordic bars and pressed a button on the other side. With a series of clunks, the gate raised itself. Typical Nordic mechanism, not too sophisticated. The gate opened up into a large clearing, full of water with a stone island in the centre. It looked like it had some kind of mechanism inside but the vaulted ceiling made it impossible to see. But Shiro knew fighting when he saw and heard it, and there was fighting going on down there. It seemed that Durak wasn't the just sweet on him after all, and had been drawling in other people's ear too, because that man wasn't a vampire.

A stranger wearing a set of scaled armour, with iron helm gloves and boots, with a banded iron shield was skilfully wielding a steel blade and taking on three vampires, all of whom looked murderously angry at his bravery. Shiro did feel it would be kind for him to help out this mysterious warrior, but he too had a code by which he did business, and he did not intervene in fights that were another's right. Besides, he didn't look like he needed help anyway, not like another. Shiro had seen something else that drew his attention even more. A massacre of Stendarr Vigils desecrated his gaze, it was hard to tell where once corpse ended and the next began. The walkway up to the island was crimson with the remnants of bodies. But that was not what made him act, it was the gluttonous parasite that was still eating, battle quite forgotten, over a young girl in novice robes, a girl who was still alive.

Her weak kicks and anguished sobs were still quite spirited for someone who must be losing an awful lot of blood. Shiro didn't need telling twice, he mounted the stone railing and whipped out his sword in a two handed grip. Focusing on his target and with one leaping strike, Shiro launched himself from the vantage point and performed a horse back strike of the unsuspecting vampire. He had to take great care not to harm the girl. All the same, the blade tip stopped an inch from the poor thing's whitening face. It sank deep into the creatures back and stopped at the hilt.

But the vampire, starving and wild, swiped at Shiro and with unnatural strength, threw him off of his sword, leaving it lodged to the beasts back. Shiro rolled away from the creature, pulling out a steel knife of his own, and wielding it in a one handed grip as the feral vampire turned to face him. It was a truly a nasty sight to behold. The eyes were so sunken that they appeared dark voids, with ominous red glints hiding within them, like the eyes of some mad wolf. The face's expression was not of mirth, the joy of satisfaction, but the wild murderous instinct of a carnivore. Wet and dry blood coated the animals face and teeth, which were more like red and yellow stalactites than fangs. The excess of a gluttonous vampire was truly disreputable, the fat stomach and great bald head both pale as the full moon, the thin but strong arms ending in long white claws, and the veiny greyish white skin that seemed more bone than flesh.

The pale face was off cold fury, clearly livid that its meal had been interrupted. Its unpleasant look was mirrored by the hooded warrior, as he prospered the weapon in front of him, preparing to defend himself. With a savage exclamation, more of a howl than a shout the thing charged at Shiro, its claws outstretched, clearly intent on a second helping and Shiro charged in turn. They collided in an attempt to tackle each other, and the vampire dug its claws into Shiro's shoulders, licking its chops.

At the same time, Shiro managed to get a hand free below the beast and thrust the dagger into its fat belly. The creature did not react to the pain; it seemed too hungry to care about simple pain. Shiro angrily stabbed it several more times, ignoring his own pain. This did not cause it to wince or react, but the monster seemed discomforted for the first time. It grabbed Shiro's face, placing its filthy palms on his grimacing face, snarling ferociously, the creature lifted Shiro up so that his face was level with its. Shiro was sightless as he felt the slicing sensation against his chest. He felt his blood seep out of the claw cuts in his tunic and his grimace widened at the filthy claws piercing his skin.

In a mad blind act of desperation, Shiro made a grab for where he thought his sword hilt was jutting out of the creatures back, and his fingers closed on it. If this vampire was pissed off before, it was downright furious now. Its whole body shook with obvious pain and its grip on Shiro slackened for a moment, but that was all it took.

The creature screeched again and its hand released Shiro, who combat rolled away as he hit the floor. As he regained his balance, Shiro watched the great vampire sway and wail, the long silver dagger stuck in its own chest. The silver was not toxic to vampires, but it burned like a white hot metal and considering where Shiro had stuck it, directly in its jugular had seemed to have damaged the beast to some degree. It began furiously grasping at it, trying to get a firm grip on the weapon in its throat. Its huge blood soaked slippery fingers were making this task rather difficult. As the monstrous parasite struggled, Shiro dived towards the girl, to check her pulse. She was alive, but fading fast, her breath was slow and shallow, and her eyes were drooping ominously.

A small drop of blood fell from Shiro's forehead and splashed against the blonde girls face. In a flash of inspiration he drew out the small crossbow that he had been forced to bring by Isran, that obsessive vampire hunter who he had been forced to meet with after that annoying orc. He pulled out one of the small steel tipped bolts from a leather pouch over his heart, and pressed its head against the deep gash on his collar. He winced at the pain but forced the head deep enough to coat it entirely with his own blood, and fitted it into the crossbow which clicked into place as it readied to fire.

The vampire was still struggling with the knife, now worked up enough to start ripping out chunks of flesh from its body in an attempt to dislodge it. It looked up for a moment however, and noticed Shiro a few feet away, his weapon poised and pointing right between its eyes. They widened as it sighted the shiny redness on the end of the silver bolt. Shiro had never used a crossbow and had no idea what would happen once he pressed the small button to release the bolt. But instinct guided him as he aimed with a steady hand.

…

"Hey… you still alive!?"

The hard voice sounded echoed, distant to the pale ears of the girl who was lying on the cave floor. Her eyes were only half open and even less focused, on the strange shape before her. The white of a face could be discerned by her sleepy retina, but the brain behind them felt drained, lifeless, and ready to give itself up to death. A vast numbness began to spread from her heart, to the tips of her fingers and toes. She choked as it reached her throat and as it washed over the numb eyes, a sudden hot stinging pain shot through them. An unpleasant heat began to simmer on her forehead, which began to mount into a stinging pain.

The woman's vision was suddenly lost in a whirl of colour and warping shadow, and her whole body seemed to shudder and spasm with the same confusing sensation of pain and pleasure. Every muscle and bone felt like it was on fire, yet no scream exited her mouth, as it might instead have been a joyful moan. It was like pain and pleasure were below her now, basic compared to what she was feeling…and then it stopped. The spasms and burning pains left the girl, who was left lying there on the cold floor with burning fiery eyes, chalk white skin…and an extremely dry mouth.

…

"H-help me!"

The girl screamed as she sat bolt upright, for a moment she felt like she was floating in mid-air. The blurry white face had become solid for a moment, and in its cold red eyes, she had found herself powerless, paralysed in the gaze of a regal and confident visage. Its dark brow beard and moustache bloody and unkempt, its thin pale lips curled in a smirk. But as she shrank away and began to scream, the face became blurry once again and this time when it reformed, it looked much different. The face was almost as pale, but the eyes were considerably less piercing, partially concealed by a hood, and the lips of this man's face were parted in a sequence of heavy breaths, not smiling at all. She noticed that her forehead was smoking and that some of whatever had been burning her had been wiped off by this stranger's glove.

The girl panicked all the same and attempted to back away from this strange man, and found that moving was considerably harder than it had been before. She felt all stiff and weak, and her breaths were still coming slowly. She remembered it stopping completely… when she'd been attacked by… She felt her forehead and found a large burn murk there, which hurt initially when she touched it. But to her amazement, the wound was gone min mere moments.

"Alright…you're still kicking…thought…you'd lost too much blood…"

The man's voice was shallow and heavy; the woman noticed that he was bleeding through his ripped clothes, a small pool of blood surrounding him. Besides the man was what appeared to be a large pile of milky white, smouldering fat? Only upon closer inspection did she realise that it was a vampire. A crossbow bolt sat at a slightly off angle in a large hole inside the creatures head, right between its now dissolved eyes. There was very little of its skull left intact, and what was left looked unfixed, almost fluid. She looked back to the man and found his own dark eyes inches from her own, and felt gloved fingers pulling one of her eyes further open. There was a momentary silence.

"Hmmm…Sanguinare Vampiris, looks like you've been infected, to what extent I don't know…"

The man's other hand felt the girl's fore head and neck, where once there had been a large amount of gruesome bite marks, but now only unblemished white skin. The silence stretched on for about a minute as the woman allowed herself to be examined, as though by a doctor. She couldn't explain it, but there was something comforting about his warm weight. "Well, bit of a pisser but I'm sure if you visit a shrine you'll be alright." The man said matter-of-factly, as he got up and dusted himself off. His own wounds seemed to miraculously have disappeared as well.

"Wha…wait!"

Shiro paused and spoke without turning around. "yes?"

The woman only managed to come to her senses when the sound of many feet began to shake the earth, and sounds of war cries could be heard from the cave entrance. With this noise came a dousing wave of reality, she knew who that was, she recognised that war chant as the bane of the undead. It had to be what remained of the vigils; they had not all been at the hall when the vampires had attacked. They would obviously rally on Dimhollow, and if they found her like this…

"I can't walk, I…I feel dizzy." The girl began to hyperventilate; she seemed to be reacting poorly to the virus. Shiro considered her for a moment, but then thought better of it. His job was done, the cavalry was here and they would help the girl. The reward was as good as his.

Shiro sheathed his blade and began to walk away; he did not want to bloody his hands any further by dealing with the Vigils of Stendarr. He wasn't exactly popular with that particular group. But something the encroaching hoard of angry clerics kept chanting caught his heightened ear. From the passage Shiro had come from, a small amount of light was emanating, the light of many torches and holy spells.

"Kill all monsters. Death to all unholy demons! "

He looked back at the girl huddled on the floor, wrapped in torn bloody clothes, staring at the approaching light with wide eyes. In that terrible moment, Shiro and this mysterious girl were of one mind, understanding the same things perfectly. They didn't sound like they were in a very reasonable mood, and if they found a vampire, even one of their own would not be spared. The girl looked over at Shiro with those same wide imploring eyes. He looked away and gritted his teeth, rolling his eyes at his luck. He had no obligations; he didn't even know her, so why save her? He had just as much right as anybody to just leave the poor wretch to her fate. But he wasn't being paid to bring home a corpse, and Isran had told him to help survivors. It irked him deeply to do so for a vampire, but Shiro picked the girl up and threw her limp body over his shoulder.

At once, Shiro began to sprint towards the strange coffin where that stranger had been fighting those vampires, all now dead on the floor. The coffin was also empty, he guessed whatever that man had wanted had been inside, and he need not concern himself with it. Past a set of stone sarcophagi, up a decrepit flight of stairs, through a door way, Shiro could hear the footsteps climbing down the steps that he had jumped. Shiro found himself in another crypt, littered with corpses, recently reanimated corpses put to rest by that stranger. A large iron gate, similar to the one Shiro had encountered earlier stood before them. It stood open like a portcullis and seemed to operate using a lever.

"Get down!"

Shiro had only a second to react as the granite grey claw swung at his face. Shiro managed to duck and roll under the colossal arm of the attacker and lay the girl down safely out of its way. It was the strangest creature that Shiro had ever seen, if it hadn't been moving, he would not have been able to distinguish it from a regular stone gargoyle. It lumbered around relatively slowly with its huge hunched body and almost comically small legs and feet. But Shiro learned of its true speed when the beast used its wings to propel itself right at him.

With the reflexes that had served him well in the previous room, Shiro decided to not draw his sword, but raise his arms and meet the beast head on. The girl watched in terror as the brute hit Shiro…and Shiro caught it! Holding the creature by its ugly hands, Shiro began to swing it around, building more and more force with each swing. All the time he could hear the Vigils getting closer, thundering up the staircase.

'Now!'

The warrior obeyed his impulse and let the gargoyle go; it flew through the doorway by which he and the girl had entered, straight into the path of the demon hunters. It was dazed and confused, and did not know what was happening when it was bathed in holy light. The vigils swarmed the creature like ants, being in a frenzied state of bloodlust. There was much shouting and stamping of feet as the many massacred the few. In the confusion, nobody saw the hooded man grab a pale girl, snap the lever in two as he pulled it, leaving a broken gate in his wake, and galloping towards the dingy light.


End file.
